Curious about the ideal midweight game for a seven to twelve -year-old? Well, here are three options worth considering that have proven to be adored by children in this age range.
WBG Score: 8/10
Player Count: 2-4
Complexity rating: 5/10
Time to learn: 25 minutes
Time to set up: 10 minutes
Time to play: 45 minutes
You’ll like this if you like: Building an army of bunnies to control the land.
Published by: IELLO
Designed by: Richard Garfield
To read my review on the expanion for this game, head here.
Every game on this list shares a common thread—they not only boast appealing aesthetics for younger gamers but also deliver a substantive experience that requires strategic thinking and meaningful decision-making all gamers can enjoy. Bunny Kingdom encapsulates this essence, presenting a charming facade paired with profound strategic depth. The gameplay revolves around a card-drafting mechanism, involving a substantial deck. Players are dealt a bundle of cards, choosing one to play immediately. Most cards allow the placement of a bunny on a specific grid location, while others offer point-scoring opportunities and enhanced powers. After playing a card, players pass the remaining cards to the next person, receiving a set from the opposite side to repeat the process. This continues until all cards are drafted, culminating in scoring based on your grouped bunny collections.
With multiple rounds and potentially intricate scoring, particularly as the board becomes densely populated, the game promises a lot of fun. The average duration is around 45 minutes, edging closer to an hour with more players. While the scoring may present a visual challenge, the rest of the game remains fairly straightforward. The goal is to strategically position bunnies by selecting cards with grid references near existing placements. An additional educational benefit lies in Bunny Kingdom, serving as an effective tool for teaching multiplication, as scoring is intricately tied to the multiplication of bunnies within each group by the number of towers among them.
Each game maintains a familiar feel, yet the abundance of cards and diverse strategies ensures that different players will attempt varied approaches in each session. The expansion further enriches the experience, providing additional reasons to bring this game to the table throughout the year. Although Bunny Kingdom may be prominently featured on social media during Easter, its appeal and enjoyment merit its presence year-round.
Unicorn Fever
WBG Score: 8/10
Player Count: 2-6 Complexity rating: 5/10
Time to learn: 25 minutes
Time to set up: 10 minutes
Time to play: 45 minutes
You’ll like this if you like: Racing unicorns and betting on the results.
Published by: Horrible Guild
Designed by: Lorenzo Silva, Lorenzo Tucci Sorrentino
To read my feature on Horrible Guild, the publiser of this game along with more thoughts on the game istelf, head here.
Unicorn Fever is a betting game but often feels more of a race game when played by children. Over the course of four seperate races your goal is to correctly predict and bet on the winners or top three finishers. You can also play magic cards to either help or hinder specific Unicorns you want to affect in some way, which children seem to love. The betting phase comes before the race, where through the simple flip of a card and roll of two dice the Unicorns will race to the finish. Children will enjoy this seperate phase of the game. It feels like an event and breaks up the game.
Game last between 40-60 minutes depending on the number of players and how often each player has played it. The game can be learnt in 20 minutes and taught in 5 minutes, but it does appear complicated at first. There are six phases across four races, but if you have one adult who understands the game, you can just get playing and only really explain the first few phases and then explain the rest as you go. But this is pribably the most complex game of the list. Each game feels completeley differnet and children will love the instant reward of multiplying their small wager for potential big returns. This game is probably better suited to children more used to modern board games, but could be enjoyed by any child with one adult willing to supervise, play along, or lead the process.
WBG Score: 7.5/10
Player Count: 2-5
Complexity rating: 4/10
Time to learn: 15 minutes
Time to set up: 10 minutes
Time to play: 30 minutes
You’ll like this if you like: Building a powerful deck of cards to complete missions.
Published by: The Op
Designed by: Prospero Hall, Kami Mandell
To read my full review on this game, head here.
This game serves as a reimplementation of a Harry Potter deck-building game. If your children have a preference for the Harry Potter franchise, both versions offer a comparable gaming experience and are highly recommended by WBG. In both iterations, the game concept revolves around navigating through the storiline from movies, offering highly thematic and accurate renditions of key events and characters. Starting with a standard hand of cards, players have the opportunity each round to acquire new and more potent cards, enhancing the strength of their decks. This process, known as deck-building, is a thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable mechanism employed in numerous board games. If you find pleasure in this game, a quick search using the website's search bar with the term "Deck Building" will reveal a plethora of other games that utilise this engaging mechanic.
The game unfolds as a campaign, featuring distinct levels akin to a video game. Progression involves successfully completing one level before advancing to the next. With each victorious level, new cards, rules, and components are introduced, enriching the game. This campaign-style structure enhances the overall experience, creating an anticipation to explore the contents of the little boxes opened at the start of each new round. Game sessions typically last between 25 to 45 minutes, based on your performance, and are relatively straightforward to comprehend. The initial rounds are designed to be accessible and easy to win, facilitating a smooth entry into the game. As players become more adept, the complexity intensifies toward the end, aligning with the expectation that their decks are now primed for more challenging tasks.
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